How security failures enabled pro-trump mob
The bloody chaos inside the U. S. Capitol on Wednesday came after the police force that protects the legislative complex was overrun by a mob of Trump supporters in what law enforcement officials called a catastrophic failure to prepare.
The siege of the Capitol, home to both the U. S. Senate and the House of Representatives, represents one of the gravest security lapses in recent U. S. history, current and former law enforcement officials said, turning one of the most recognizable symbols of American power into a locus of political violence.
While events such as a presidential inauguration involve detailed security plans by numerous security agencies, far less planning went into protecting the joint session of Congress that convened on Wednesday to ratify the results of the 2020 presidential election, the officials said. That lapse came despite glaring warning signs of potential violence by hard- line supporters of President Donald Trump, who are inflamed by his baseless claims of a stolen election and hope to block the inauguration of president-elect Joe Biden.
And security initially was handled almost entirely alone by the U. S. Capitol Police, a 2,000- member force under the control of Congress and dedicated to protecting the 126-acre Capitol Grounds. For reasons that remained unclear as of early Thursday, other arms of the U. S. federal government’s vast security apparatus did not arrive in force for hours as rioters besieged the seat of Congress.
The chief of the Capitol Police resigned Thursday.
Steven Sund’s last day will be Jan. 16, according to a department official.
The resignation follows calls for his dismissal earlier Thursday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and criticism from Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell and other lawmakers who were enraged after his force failed to thwart the Wednesday afternoon assault.
The Capitol is a short walk from where Trump in a speech railed against the election just before the riot began, calling the vote an “egregious assault on our democracy” and urging his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” in a “Save America March.”
The counting of the electoral votes of the presidential election by Congress, normally a formality, was preceded by weeks of threats in social media that planned pro-trump protests could descend into violence. Despite those rumblings of danger, the Capitol Police force did not request advance help to secure the building from other federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, according to one senior official. And National Guard reinforcements, summoned by the city’s mayor, were not mobilized until more than an hour after protesters had first breached the barricades.
In stark contrast, those agencies were aggressively deployed by the Trump administration during last summer’s police brutality protests in Washington and elsewhere in the United States.
Capitol Police Chief Sund on Thursday said in a statement that agency is conducting a “thorough review of this incident, security planning and policies and procedures.” The agency, he said, had a “robust plan” to address “anticipated First Amendment activities.”
“But make no mistake — these mass riots were not First Amendment activities; there were criminal riotous behaviour,” Sund said. “The actions of the USCP officers were heroic given the situation they faced.”
Officers were attacked with lead pipes, chemical irritants and other weapons, the chief said. In a separate video news conference with reporters, Democratic House Rep. Tim Ryan said up to 60 police officers were injured and 15 remained in the hospital. One is in critical condition. Many had head injuries after being bludgeoned by rioters, Ryan said.
On Thursday afternoon, Pelosi, a Democrat from California, called for Sund’s resignation. She said she had already received a notice from House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving — who is responsible Senate and House security and oversees the police force — that he would resign.
“There was a failure of leadership at the top of the Capitol Police,” she said.
She added that other federal agencies also deserved a share of the blame for the failed planning and response to the Capitol siege.
Capitol Police officers are trained to keep protesters off the Capitol’s marble outdoor steps, to protect the complex like a citadel. But there are so many windows and doors in the 19th-century complex that it is difficult to defend them all, said Terrance Gainer, who served as Capitol Police chief and later as the U.S. Senate’s Sergeant at Arms, its chief law enforcement officer.
“Once they lost the steps, they lost the doors and windows,” Gainer said.
As hordes of rioters streamed into the heart of American government, they could be seen on camera roaming freely through the historic halls — swinging from a balcony, rifling through the offices of House Speaker Pelosi, and even sitting in the chair reserved for the Senate’s presiding officer. One rioter was captured by a Reuters photographer casually shouldering a large Confederate battle flag as he strode inside the Capitol — a searingly evocative inversion of the failed 1861-1865 insurrection against the American republic by Southern states in an effort to perpetuate slavery.
“I truly had to suspend my disbelief because I didn’t think you could breach the Capitol,” said Gainer, the former Capitol Police chief. “There will need to be a full accounting. We’re going to have to have a deep dive into what went wrong.”
Lawmakers inside the building blamed a lack of preparation for the historic security breach. “I think police did a good job under the circumstances, but there clearly wasn’t enough planning,” said Representative Vicente Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat.
The long-planned protest, Gonzalez said, called for an “overwhelming display of force” by police.
A senior official with the U. S. Department of Homeland Security said Capitol Police should have planned better for an assault on the building.
“They should have anticipated this,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter. “And while it was happening, they should have called in more support.”
After a perimeter was quickly breached, Capitol Police officers seemed to be alone in battling the extremists on the building’s steps, according to witness accounts and video from the scene. They were unable to secure all the doors and windows in the sprawling complex. Protesters surged inside the building, which contains the chambers of both houses of Congress. Video footage showed Capitol Police overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers of intruders as the mob grew into the thousands.
Two U.S. officials said that Washington city officials had hoped to avoid a militarized response in the days before the protest. The fear: They were concerned about a repeat of the scenes of the harsh federal response to anti- racism protests that took place across the street from the White House in June. They said it was unclear why it took as long as it did for the city police force to arrive at the Capitol.
Whatever the case, they added, the delay was too long. A U. S. defence official said Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser requested National Guard troops at around 2 p. m. That was about 45 minutes after the rioters had breached the first barricade.
Neil Trugman, a former Capitol Police intelligence officer, called Wednesday’s invasion of the complex unfathomable.
He blamed Trump for inciting the riot.
“This is no longer just a protest,” Trugman said. “They crossed the line. This is terrorism.”